Speaker 1: The postcard shows the Twin Towers on fire, rendered artistically
Speaker 1: in black and white, haunting monochromatic carnage compressed onto four
Speaker 1: by six cardstock. The view is from Brooklyn. You can
Speaker 1: tell because the South Tower burns to the left. Smoke
Speaker 1: rises up to a jagged line mimicking the edge of
Speaker 1: a burnt piece of paper. At the top, in calligraphy,
Speaker 1: it says, everyone who knew me before eleven believes I'm dead.
Speaker 1: From my Heart Radio, this is missing on nine eleven,
Speaker 1: The story of one woman who vanished on the eve
Speaker 1: of history and my quest to find her. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Wallzac. In November two thousand four, a man named
Speaker 1: Frank Warren created an art project called post Secret. The
Speaker 1: idea was simple and brilliant. Write a secret on a postcard,
Speaker 1: mail it to him anonymously, and if it was good,
Speaker 1: he would post it on his blog. It quickly blew up,
Speaker 1: landing Frank's speaking gigs and book deals and permeating pop
Speaker 1: culture to appearing most notably in the music video for
Speaker 1: the hit two thousand five song Dirty Little Secret by
Speaker 1: the All American Rejects. Post Secret had something for everyone.
Speaker 1: Writer's got catharsis a chance to share deep, dark personal truths.
Speaker 1: Readers got voyeurism plus an opportunity to see who shared
Speaker 1: their secrets. And Frank got thousands of postcards, including the
Speaker 1: nine eleven postcard. By now it's one of his most famous.
Speaker 1: He even incorporated it into a Ted talk. It's a remarkable,
Speaker 1: mind boggling singular secret, the idea that someone quote died
Speaker 1: on nine eleven. But hey, guess what they're alive. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's bonkers. Of course, I wanted to learn more about
Speaker 1: the postcard. When was it mailed, where was it mailed from?
Speaker 1: Could snay Ha have sent it? And by the way,
Speaker 1: I'll put it on Twitter at at John wallzac j
Speaker 1: O n w A l c z A K. In
Speaker 1: June two thousand and six, snay Haunts Disappearance got a
Speaker 1: burst of attention when New York Magazine ran an article
Speaker 1: on it. That article, by Mark Fast is the reason
Speaker 1: why it didn't just fade away, why it lives on today.
Speaker 1: For the first time, people seriously considered the idea that
Speaker 1: snay Ha used nine eleven to run away, to voluntarily disappear,
Speaker 1: to essentially fake her owned So I wanted to know
Speaker 1: did Frank get the mysterious postcard before or after the
Speaker 1: article ran. If before, I'd be more inclined to think
Speaker 1: it's legit. If after, though, especially right after, I'd be
Speaker 1: more inclined to think it's a hoax, a fake, bullshit
Speaker 1: secret sent in by publicity hungry crank. Unfortunately, Frank wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell me when he got the postcard, so I bypassed
Speaker 1: him www dot archive dot org copies of his old site,
Speaker 1: and then there it was. The postcard first published on
Speaker 1: March fourth, two thousand five, fifteen months before the New
Speaker 1: York article. Now, obviously that doesn't prove it's legit, but
Speaker 1: for argument's sake, let's say that it is someone thought
Speaker 1: to have died on eleven actually survived and never came
Speaker 1: forward except through this anonymous postcard. Well, who sent it.
Speaker 1: The list of possible candidates is extremely short because there's
Speaker 1: irrefutable proof that most nine eleven victims died d n A, eyewitnesses,
Speaker 1: phone calls, etcetera. With snay Haa, though there's nothing, no evidence.
Speaker 1: So yes, she is at the top of my list
Speaker 1: of who could have sent it if it's legit. Let
Speaker 1: me say also that although Frank wouldn't tell me when
Speaker 1: he got the postcard. He did send me a high
Speaker 1: resolution image of it, and not gonna lie, the first
Speaker 1: thing I did was throw it into Photoshop to see
Speaker 1: if I can make out anything like a postmark through
Speaker 1: the image on the front alas no luck, but it
Speaker 1: was worth a shot. Finally, I asked an art expert
Speaker 1: to look at the postcard. He told me that whoever
Speaker 1: drew the towers likely used either a graphite pencil or
Speaker 1: soft charcoal. That's stuck with me. Remember in the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: snay Hall left med school for a year and spent
Speaker 1: six or seven months painting in Italy. Many people who
Speaker 1: knew her, including Dr E one of her supervised there's
Speaker 1: at Cabrini Medical Center, said she wanted to be an artist,
Speaker 1: not a doctor. I can't describe her paintings and detail
Speaker 1: I vaguely remember. I just remember she was always sketching,
Speaker 1: and I remember commenting at times that they were beautiful,
Speaker 1: and she would write she liked writing, and so I
Speaker 1: saw some for writing. She like kind of showed them
Speaker 1: to me when she was helping me write something. So
Speaker 1: when you say sketching, um, do you remember was it pencil?
Speaker 1: Charcoal pencil or charcoal. I don't remember colors. The first
Speaker 1: time I spoke to Dr E by phone, I asked
Speaker 1: if she knew about the postcard, if she had ever
Speaker 1: seen it. She said no, So I emailed it to her. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really creepy, right, that's very bizarre for whoever said that,
Speaker 1: whoever sent that. Doctor E has long believed that snay
Speaker 1: How used nine eleven as cover to escape to start
Speaker 1: a new life. The snay How she knew, both professionally
Speaker 1: and personally, was unhappy. She wanted to escape. Is it
Speaker 1: just your gut feeling or do you have you have
Speaker 1: anything to indicate that that might have been the case. No,
Speaker 1: So just to go up feeling. But just knowing her,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, there's no way, Like she's out there.
Speaker 1: I really believe she's alive. Just my strong, strong up feeling.
Speaker 1: I just knew her personality too. Well. I don't see her.
Speaker 1: I just don't see your running to the the building. Number one, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I don't see her doing that. And number two, I
Speaker 1: she was so like, kind of manipulative and bright, and
Speaker 1: you know she could play people, you know. Mark Boguton,
Speaker 1: the attorney hired by snayhouse husband Ron after nine eleven
Speaker 1: doesn't buy it could be that she ran away for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, was living in European drinking espresso at some
Speaker 1: cafe somewhere in either large meetings the size or small
Speaker 1: European city. It's one possibility. But in order for that
Speaker 1: to be feasible, they have to he should have some
Speaker 1: means of support that have to have been some type
Speaker 1: of evidence of preparation, bank withdrawals, credit card expenditures, anything
Speaker 1: like that. And they went through all the credit card records, records,
Speaker 1: bank records, they went through you know, whatever computer history
Speaker 1: she had and things like that. There's no evidence of
Speaker 1: any type of preparation, any means of financial preparation for
Speaker 1: any type of fugitive secretive existence. And also there were
Speaker 1: just some basic things like when Ron got to the apartment,
Speaker 1: her travel papers with her passport was in the apartment.
Speaker 1: I believe even he's like, her eyeglasses were in the apartment.
Speaker 1: So people that say that she just decided she saw
Speaker 1: what happened and decided to up and flee and take
Speaker 1: advantage of the moment, that's so, that's crazy. How many
Speaker 1: people did that. I'm like, look at this. The trade center.
Speaker 1: I'm going to Paris and we will find me. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not letting, I'm not thinking my glasses the right passport. No, No,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. It's just loot. Chris, He's not wrong. It
Speaker 1: is ludicrous at least the idea. Retired NYPD detective Richard Stark,
Speaker 1: who investigated the case, also thinks it's crazy. How does
Speaker 1: somebody just get a new passport? No, I d that
Speaker 1: quick and just disappear. But she planned it. But I
Speaker 1: don't see that either. Would that be so hard though?
Speaker 1: If I'm having personal problems and you know, this is
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, so when technology was more in its
Speaker 1: infancy to what convinces you that it would be so
Speaker 1: difficult to disappear? Because so many people, so many thousands
Speaker 1: and tens of thousands of people do it every year.
Speaker 1: What makes you doubt that? In particular because it a
Speaker 1: closeness to her mother. But she couldn't do that to
Speaker 1: a family, not Ron maybe I don't know, but father,
Speaker 1: no way, they were very close family photos I saw
Speaker 1: and she told her mother every day. This is the
Speaker 1: key piece of evidence most people cite to write off
Speaker 1: the idea that snay Haw used nine eleven as cover
Speaker 1: to voluntarily disappear. She loved her mom. She wouldn't do
Speaker 1: that to her family. I get it. But every year,
Speaker 1: all over the globe, people run off. It's an age
Speaker 1: old story. Father's abandoned children, husbands, their wives, children, their parents.
Speaker 1: No one wants to think someone they love could just
Speaker 1: run away, but thousands do every year. White Detective Stark,
Speaker 1: you might say, well, what about her passport, her credit card,
Speaker 1: her glasses. Wouldn't she need papers, wouldn't she need help?
Speaker 1: I'll concede that, yes, it would be nearly impossible for
Speaker 1: someone to spontaneously run off and escape detection without some help.
Speaker 1: But remember, say stayed somewhere on the night of September ten.
Speaker 1: She stayed with someone, and that person never came forward.
Speaker 1: So can I see that person helping Snayha escape? Yes?
Speaker 1: I can say Snayha woke up on nine eleven, turn
Speaker 1: on a TV and saw the attacks. Maybe she'd decided
Speaker 1: to stay put wherever she slept a night of the tenth,
Speaker 1: and then later decided not to go home, or say
Speaker 1: she was walking home, saw the attacks, turned away and
Speaker 1: melted back into the city. Then what multiple studies have
Speaker 1: examined the behavior of people who voluntarily and spontaneously disappeared
Speaker 1: and were later found in a paper titled Living Absence
Speaker 1: The Strange Geographies of Missing People. One woman said, I
Speaker 1: felt free when I left. As soon as I walked
Speaker 1: out the door, I felt free. Researchers found that women
Speaker 1: were more likely than men to plan in absence, but
Speaker 1: planning usually occupied only a small window of time. Many
Speaker 1: people who chose to disappear did so without any idea
Speaker 1: of how long they would actually be gone. They just
Speaker 1: decided to leave, then figured out what to do. Most
Speaker 1: began by walking in urban environments. One woman told researchers
Speaker 1: my mind was going nineteen to a dozen. I could
Speaker 1: sit still. I had to keep moving because my mind
Speaker 1: was in such disarray. The pacing was to try to
Speaker 1: keep up with the anxiety I was feeling inside. I
Speaker 1: just desperately needed to keep on the move all the time.
Speaker 1: And then when I started walking along in the streets,
Speaker 1: I was walking really quite quickly. Initially, the decision to
Speaker 1: move was just a physical need to move. The pacing
Speaker 1: up and down, and the stomach churning was getting so
Speaker 1: intense it was painful. So the only thing that seemed
Speaker 1: to relieve it was walking fast. Researchers learned that people
Speaker 1: who voluntarily vanished went to great lengths to keep their
Speaker 1: location secret. They changed their physical appearance and clothes. They
Speaker 1: wore dark clothing and or clothing to conceal their face.
Speaker 1: They used fake names, and their immediate journeys were nonlinear,
Speaker 1: characterized by circles, loops, or squares lost in chaotic thought.
Speaker 1: When considering whether or not to return home to family
Speaker 1: and friends, they were racked with gilt, uncertainty, and fear
Speaker 1: fear of how they would be received as that person
Speaker 1: who did that to their family voluntarily. A second study
Speaker 1: characterized the absence of people who voluntarily disappeared as quote
Speaker 1: accidentally deliberate, or enacted as an unplanned crisis. A third
Speaker 1: study listed common factors which led adults to voluntarily disappear,
Speaker 1: including historic and current traumatic experiences, strong emotions related to
Speaker 1: being unable to cope, feeling trapped and powerless to talk
Speaker 1: about or share their feelings, and stress and depression. Initially,
Speaker 1: when they escaped, they felt elation, but soon that jubilant
Speaker 1: feeling was replaced by quote crisis mobility. They tried hard
Speaker 1: to avoid detection to buy space and time to think,
Speaker 1: to decide whether or not to go home. I knew
Speaker 1: I had to stay away from authority, and I had
Speaker 1: to stay away from people I knew because they were
Speaker 1: already looking for me. For weeks, I just traveled about
Speaker 1: and after every couple of days, I get myself some
Speaker 1: fresh clothes, go and get cleaned up and washed and
Speaker 1: dumped my other stuff. I didn't want to be seen.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be found. That's the hardest thing
Speaker 1: coming home again. Going away is easy. Shortly after nine eleven,
Speaker 1: there was at least one possible sighting of snay Ha.
Speaker 1: On September thousand one, a reverend named Charles Bakin spoke
Speaker 1: with a woman he thought was snay Ha at a
Speaker 1: doctor's office in Manhasset, Long Island. He told the NYPD
Speaker 1: that the woman strongly resembled snay Ha, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: sure it was her. The woman had a strong Indian accent,
Speaker 1: he said, but snay Haa did not have an accent.
Speaker 1: Neither the NYPD nor her family think the woman Baking
Speaker 1: spotted was actually snay Ha. Unfortunately I can't interview Bachan.
Speaker 1: He died in on January two thousand four. The NYPD
Speaker 1: got an alert that ongoing activity associated with snay Haa
Speaker 1: was connected to an address in Los Angeles. By this point,
Speaker 1: Detective Stark was no longer on the case, so a
Speaker 1: different investigator picked it up. He asked the l a
Speaker 1: p D to send officers to the address. Was snay
Speaker 1: Hall alive? Did she live there? Well, she didn't live there,
Speaker 1: but Ron did. It appears the alert was a false alarm,
Speaker 1: some kind of database error. Ron spoke with two l
Speaker 1: a p D cops then called the NYPD. In July
Speaker 1: two thousand three, he said he moved back to California,
Speaker 1: his home state, to restart his life to pick up
Speaker 1: the pieces. After nine eleven, the new YPD investigator asked
Speaker 1: Ron again about the mysterious phone call placed at four
Speaker 1: oh five am on nine eleven from his apartment landline
Speaker 1: to his cell phone. Ron Quote thought about it for
Speaker 1: a while and came to the conclusion he was so
Speaker 1: distraught over his wife that he woke up still half
Speaker 1: asleep and called his cell phone to check the messages
Speaker 1: to see if she called. The investigator told ron Quote,
Speaker 1: there's no physical evidence that supports the theory that his
Speaker 1: wife died in the world Trade Center incident. There are
Speaker 1: no witnesses to her being there. Obviously ron knew that,
Speaker 1: but still he assumed it's probably how Snaha died at
Speaker 1: the Trade Center on nine eleven. When I started investigating
Speaker 1: this case, one of the first things I did was
Speaker 1: searched for signs of snay Haa on social media and
Speaker 1: in public databases along shot I know, so I was
Speaker 1: surprised when sna did show up in databases after two
Speaker 1: thousand one, linked to addresses in California, including the home
Speaker 1: where ron lived, the address the L A p D visited.
Speaker 1: I also found a LinkedIn profile connected to one of
Speaker 1: snay house email addresses, strange for multiple reasons. LinkedIn wasn't
Speaker 1: even founded until two thousand three, two years after nine eleven.
Speaker 1: The profile has no activity and no friends. It's listed
Speaker 1: in the United Air Memorates or U A E. I
Speaker 1: reached out to that snay Hah, but she never responded,
Speaker 1: complicating things and providing a probable answer. There's a different
Speaker 1: snaiha and without any fillip into U A E. The
Speaker 1: likeliest answer then to explain why snay has shows up
Speaker 1: post nine eleven connected to addresses in California and to
Speaker 1: a LinkedIn profile in the u a E is simple
Speaker 1: database errors. Earlier this year, during COVID, I sat down
Speaker 1: outside freezing at a Brooklyn cafe with an expert on
Speaker 1: pseudo side faking your own debt, Elizabeth Greenwood, and the
Speaker 1: author of Playing Dead, a Journey through the world of
Speaker 1: death fraud. Okay, and tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: the book. So, Playing Dead is a non fiction book
Speaker 1: about what it would take to fake your death in
Speaker 1: the twenty one century. I found myself mired in Sorry,
Speaker 1: funny Bonnie is Greenwood's dog. We'll take that when I
Speaker 1: get funny, come here, you're being a diva on set. Um.
Speaker 1: I found myself in a lot of student loan debt,
Speaker 1: like so many of my generation, to the tune of
Speaker 1: six figures, and wasn't really thrilled about that. Wasn't really
Speaker 1: thrilled about my life decisions that brought me there. Um.
Speaker 1: So I just had the kind of fantasy of, man,
Speaker 1: what if I could find a rickety country the beach
Speaker 1: and no extradition policy, It just slip through the cracks.
Speaker 1: And a friend of mine very jokingly said, oh, or
Speaker 1: you could fake your death, And just that idea really
Speaker 1: got me sent to the races about what is that about?
Speaker 1: Can people still do that in the twenty one century
Speaker 1: with all this technology? Can that help you or hinder you?
Speaker 1: And you know, I wanted to approach this question from
Speaker 1: a really broad purview, you know, because we have heard
Speaker 1: so many great pop culture lure about Elvis faking his
Speaker 1: death for example. UM So I was just really interested
Speaker 1: in approaching this topic very broadly, very holistically, to see
Speaker 1: what this thing is all about. Is it possible to
Speaker 1: fake your death or to disappear and have nobody find
Speaker 1: you in or even to say twenty years ago in
Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand one, Well, anything's possible. The problem
Speaker 1: is proving a negative is really hard to do. Right So,
Speaker 1: if we think the people successfully fake their death or disappeared,
Speaker 1: we don't really have proof of that. Of course, if
Speaker 1: it's a fake death, you don't have a body you
Speaker 1: can prove to say I did this. I think the
Speaker 1: real burden of proof kind of falls on people not
Speaker 1: being found, right, on people um not having um, you know,
Speaker 1: anything turn up to suggest that they they did in
Speaker 1: fact fake something. So it's a kind of tricky thing
Speaker 1: to quote unquote prove. Can you talk about the top
Speaker 1: motivations people have for faking their own deaths, and then
Speaker 1: kind of the breakdown between men and women. So I
Speaker 1: think that the type of fake death we hear about
Speaker 1: the most is UH for life insurance fraud. So this
Speaker 1: is a kind of fake death for profit. It's almost
Speaker 1: too tempting, right You see that you can take out
Speaker 1: this policy and pay a fraction of what your eventual
Speaker 1: payout would be in your death, and people think, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to wait and I want to be
Speaker 1: around for that money. So that's a really common one.
Speaker 1: Of course, there's a lot of life insurance fraud cases
Speaker 1: where they'll try to file the claim still without a body.
Speaker 1: Um in those take seven years to pay out, or
Speaker 1: people in certain cases will try to pass off bodies
Speaker 1: that are not theirs as their own, which is a
Speaker 1: whole other thing. And from my experience and from interviewing
Speaker 1: various private investigators who look at this sort of thing,
Speaker 1: it does seem to skew very male um this particular
Speaker 1: type of death fraud, but in general, faking your own
Speaker 1: death is very much a male thing, right right, So
Speaker 1: again this gets us into this fishy burden of proof.
Speaker 1: So the people who fake their deaths and get caught
Speaker 1: our men. Right, So people who fake their deaths and
Speaker 1: don't get caught we don't know about. We presume they're dead.
Speaker 1: So it's very possible that these are more women who
Speaker 1: do that. But the ones that we can prove who
Speaker 1: get caught, do you tend to be men? It's I'm
Speaker 1: trying to I'm trying to let you speak and not
Speaker 1: laugh too much as you're speaking. But um, why do
Speaker 1: you think women would be better at faking their own deaths? Well?
Speaker 1: I think that women. If we're going to go with
Speaker 1: the premise that women don't fake their deaths as much,
Speaker 1: which I think is true, and they don't fake their
Speaker 1: deaths because women just you know, are culturally conditioned to
Speaker 1: be caretakers, to be the people who stick around. We
Speaker 1: have a term deadbeat dad. We don't have a term
Speaker 1: called deadbeat mom, even though of course that happens in
Speaker 1: certain cases. Women are just feel i think, a greater
Speaker 1: burden of responsibility for their families, for their lives, for
Speaker 1: their dependence. So for a woman to fake her death,
Speaker 1: the motive I think would have to be much more
Speaker 1: serious than trying to cash out on an insurance fraud
Speaker 1: policy trying to light out with your second emily, which
Speaker 1: is another reason men fake their debts. Uh. So, I
Speaker 1: think when women do fake their deaths, they are doing
Speaker 1: it for much more serious reasons, usually for threat of violence,
Speaker 1: usually because they're really trying to save their own lives.
Speaker 1: There for the stakes are just a lot higher. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think that at least in a lot
Speaker 1: of the men that I spoke with who fake their debts,
Speaker 1: there was this kind of like oh wow factor that
Speaker 1: they wanted to share with people, so they would do it,
Speaker 1: get away with it, and then like lab to people
Speaker 1: that they did it because they are so proud of themselves.
Speaker 1: I don't think women have that same ego thrust. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking in very broad generalizations right now, but when
Speaker 1: I look at the breakdown, when I look at the
Speaker 1: different cases, that that does seem to be a truism.
Speaker 1: So in terms of motives, am I pronouncing his last
Speaker 1: named Frank herne Okay. Frank said, typically his client Frank
Speaker 1: by the way, helps people disappear um. Typically client motives
Speaker 1: number one money, number two, violence, and the bronze medal,
Speaker 1: occasionally love. And he said between two thousand one to twelve,
Speaker 1: he helped about fifty people disappear and charged about thirty
Speaker 1: dollars per case, but that if a woman came to
Speaker 1: him an imminent danger that he would not charge them. So,
Speaker 1: what are some of the steps that you would take
Speaker 1: to fake your own death? And is it something that
Speaker 1: you think you could do on a spur of the
Speaker 1: moment if you hadn't been planning it before, and get
Speaker 1: away with it. Um. So to the latter part of
Speaker 1: your question, absolutely not, I think to successfully fake your death.
Speaker 1: And again this is coming from taking from the experiences
Speaker 1: of people who did fake their deaths successfully for you know,
Speaker 1: a matter of years. In some cases, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to speak to these ones that we just don't know
Speaker 1: that are presumed dead. Of course, these are people who
Speaker 1: put in lots and lots of very thoughtful planning about
Speaker 1: what they were going to do later on, how they
Speaker 1: were going to support themselves, how they were really going
Speaker 1: to stay off the grade or at least cut off
Speaker 1: from their previous life. So to the former part of
Speaker 1: your question about how you would fake your death, this
Speaker 1: is a question I asked a lot to everyone, from
Speaker 1: people who did it themselves, to investigators to law enforcement,
Speaker 1: and they always came back with the same question to meet,
Speaker 1: which is, well, who's looking for you? If you are
Speaker 1: a hedge fund person like Sam Israel the Third who
Speaker 1: staged his death in two thousand and eight after absconding
Speaker 1: um with half a billion dollars of investor money, there
Speaker 1: there's quite a few people looking for you, right, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, from the FBI to private investigators, sec like
Speaker 1: you name it. If you're just a regular Joe who
Speaker 1: isn't evading law enforcement or legal consequences or debt collectors
Speaker 1: like of the FBI, or you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: mafia level or something, people who really care about their money, right,
Speaker 1: I think that it's it's a bit easier, So it's
Speaker 1: really a question about who cares about you. That also
Speaker 1: kind of circles back to family. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: are someone who doesn't have a lot of families strange
Speaker 1: from your family, where where the family who's left behind
Speaker 1: and grieving and confused, isn't going to hire a private
Speaker 1: investigator to look for you, you know, that's also a
Speaker 1: bit easier. So I think that's that that's really the
Speaker 1: big question. And when it comes to how you do
Speaker 1: it and the level of subterfuge. You need to employees
Speaker 1: who's looking for you. So some of these cases, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna list them off, And then I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you could talk about them the Sam Israel the Third,
Speaker 1: Benny went John Darwin and then Lisa boosin y Um,
Speaker 1: can you just kind of run us through and tell
Speaker 1: us some about these individual cases? Sure? So. Sam Israel
Speaker 1: the Third was the founder of the Bayou Hedge Fund Group,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and eight it came to light
Speaker 1: that it had been a rather large ponzi scheme. At
Speaker 1: that time, it was the largest ponzi scheme in US
Speaker 1: history until Bernie made Offs came out came to light
Speaker 1: just a few months later. There's a great book about
Speaker 1: Sam Israel the Third called Octopus by Gee Lawson, which
Speaker 1: I highly recommend because Sam faking his death is like
Speaker 1: the least crazy thing in Sam's story. So, Anny you,
Speaker 1: he had stolen essentially this money and it all came out.
Speaker 1: He faked his death by staging what was to appear
Speaker 1: suicidal plunge off the Bear Mountain Bridge in upstate New York,
Speaker 1: about thirty miles north of the city. He parked his
Speaker 1: car on the bridge in the windshield. In the dust
Speaker 1: on the windshield wrote suicide is Painless also happens to
Speaker 1: be the theme song from mash Uh. So he jumped
Speaker 1: off the bridge. He landed in construction nets that had
Speaker 1: been strung below, and you know, kind of mcgever style
Speaker 1: like hand over hand, crawled out to the other side,
Speaker 1: to the New York state side, where he was picked
Speaker 1: up by an accomplice and then lit out in an
Speaker 1: RV and no one found him for almost a month.
Speaker 1: He was staying at campgrounds around New York. In New England,
Speaker 1: he saw himself on America's Most Wanted at one point,
Speaker 1: and he turned himself in. So even with this many
Speaker 1: people looking for him, and people were pressing his family
Speaker 1: and telling them they were going to go to jail
Speaker 1: and all this. You know, he turned himself in, So
Speaker 1: make what you will of that. From the start, absolutely yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Frank said it that. Do you know the
Speaker 1: FBI didn't show up and say, oh, he left a
Speaker 1: suicide note, let's go home. Guys like you know this,
Speaker 1: this was suspicious from the beginning, again because of the
Speaker 1: circumstances of his life at the time. So the next one,
Speaker 1: Benny went disappeared in nine UH and he left behind
Speaker 1: a grieving fiance and a four year old daughter from
Speaker 1: a previous marriage. I guess you know, i'd ask you
Speaker 1: in relation to that, the people that whose cases you examined,
Speaker 1: or the people that you interviewed, what kind of role
Speaker 1: did family play, how close they what are their family?
Speaker 1: How many people were looking for them? Were you know,
Speaker 1: certain people were willing to do this even if they
Speaker 1: were very close to or loved members of their family. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The family piece is really interesting because in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, some people's family members, whether it's a spouse
Speaker 1: or a son or daughter, we're in on it with them,
Speaker 1: especially in the life insurance fraud cases, because you need
Speaker 1: someone to claim the UH policy the payoff right, so
Speaker 1: they'd have to be conspiring with you. In certain cases,
Speaker 1: people had no idea, and you know, did go to
Speaker 1: a great deal of trouble and expense and hiring investigators
Speaker 1: to check into all these things. But family, interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: is one of the main ways in which people give
Speaker 1: themselves up. Because I think we have this idea that
Speaker 1: when we fake our own deaths were leaving behind who
Speaker 1: we were becoming someone else. So there's an example in
Speaker 1: the book to like kind of scale it out for
Speaker 1: people who don't think about faking their deaths all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess there are people out there like that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the same idea. If you think about
Speaker 1: if you were to move to California, say, and you
Speaker 1: would be this totally different, improved, better optimized version of
Speaker 1: yourself in California. Well, you get to California and ship
Speaker 1: you're still you. If that's the gag, that's kind of
Speaker 1: the bad news, right. So when people fake their deaths, similarly,
Speaker 1: they think that they're going to be able to kind
Speaker 1: of leave behind all the parts of themselves that were crappy,
Speaker 1: that had committed crimes, that had made all these terrible mistakes,
Speaker 1: and still maintain some part of them that is precious
Speaker 1: and is special to them. But do you fake your death,
Speaker 1: it really means cutting off everyone and everything. It's a
Speaker 1: complete severing. So the ways in which a lot of
Speaker 1: people have gotten caught over the years is because they
Speaker 1: can't make that clean cut. They still want to call
Speaker 1: mom on her birthday. You still want to check in
Speaker 1: on your daughter and see how things are going, and
Speaker 1: unfortunately you just can't. So We've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: people get caught in that very way. Those those are
Speaker 1: the people who whose families actually believe that their loved
Speaker 1: ones died. But can you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the people whose families we're in on it?
Speaker 1: So John Darwin is probably the most interesting part of
Speaker 1: or case in the book. Can you talk about him? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. John Darwin um is an Englishman and in
Speaker 1: two thousand two he staged his death at sea. He's
Speaker 1: kind of that phrase, okay, I never understand the exception
Speaker 1: that proves the rule these ages as at see, and
Speaker 1: did it quite successfully for I believe almost it's a
Speaker 1: two thousand seven he's got five to six years anyway.
Speaker 1: John Darwin, English guy. He had worked jobs such as
Speaker 1: being a teacher, a prison guard, kind of mid level
Speaker 1: um civil servant jobs, and at the time he had
Speaker 1: gotten himself into a bit of real estate and credit
Speaker 1: card debt. So he had the brilliant idea to stage
Speaker 1: this kayaking accident at sea collect life insurance along with
Speaker 1: um wow, an interview. Yeah, what's it called when you
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm saving such a brain fart right now?
Speaker 1: When you um retire like you're like ever, let's say
Speaker 1: yes exactly, thank you, thank you, thank you. It would
Speaker 1: have taken me a long time to get there. Thanks
Speaker 1: a lot, and in collect pensions that his wife would
Speaker 1: collect after he was deceased. So one day in March
Speaker 1: two thousand two, Darwin packs his kayak with some dry clothes,
Speaker 1: some food, paddles out, has a few witnesses that see
Speaker 1: him do it. We're walking their dogs on the beach,
Speaker 1: capsizes his canoe. They call it canoe in England, it's
Speaker 1: really kayak here, of course, swims to shore. His wife
Speaker 1: a few hours later picks him up. She's in on this,
Speaker 1: of course, and drives him to the train station. He
Speaker 1: takes a train to the west coast of England, where
Speaker 1: he then goes and camps out on the beach for
Speaker 1: a few months, gets completely gaunt like, grows a weird beard.
Speaker 1: All this. A few months later his wife at picks
Speaker 1: him up and brings him back home where he lives
Speaker 1: next door to his own house. So in the intervening time,
Speaker 1: she was completely playing the part of the grieving widow.
Speaker 1: They had two adult sons who thought that their dad
Speaker 1: was dead. Um she let them believe that, and she'd
Speaker 1: started the process of starting to collect some of these payoffs,
Speaker 1: so that the crazy thing about Darwin is that he
Speaker 1: did live next door to his own house. You know,
Speaker 1: his sons would visit here and there, and you know
Speaker 1: he made himself scarce at those times. Of course, just
Speaker 1: to emphasize how crazy this is, in two thousand two,
Speaker 1: John Darwin faked his own death. His wife was in
Speaker 1: on it. He moved home and the entire time his
Speaker 1: sons thought he was dead, Darwin didn't get caught. He
Speaker 1: did turn himself in eventually. He says it was because
Speaker 1: he couldn't take Lyne to his son's anymore. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's talk specifically about this case. Say, Philip, had you
Speaker 1: heard of her before I contacted? I had not heard
Speaker 1: of her, and I was so excited I saw this
Speaker 1: case because I think it's completely fascinating. But no, I
Speaker 1: had not heard of her. Was thirty years old on
Speaker 1: nine eleven UM. She was a medical resident, just gribe
Speaker 1: by many people as brilliant, really smart, extroverted, but also troubled,
Speaker 1: maybe dealt with mental illness, substance abuse affairs. Somebody who
Speaker 1: knew her told me that she really didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a doctor, that she came from a conservative, traditional
Speaker 1: Indian family that kind of pushed her into medicine, but
Speaker 1: that her love was art and poetry. It seems crazy,
Speaker 1: like it's it's fascinating. And because there is no physical
Speaker 1: evidence that she died at the trade center, none of
Speaker 1: there's been no DNA match, none of her belongings have
Speaker 1: been positively identified. And when you combine that with the
Speaker 1: fact of who she was as this kind of brilliant,
Speaker 1: confident person, you know, really really smart by all accounts,
Speaker 1: and the fact that nobody knows where she stayed on
Speaker 1: the night of September. If there was someone who could
Speaker 1: or would try to successfully pull this off, it seems
Speaker 1: to be heard. So I thought it was fascinating. I
Speaker 1: was reading this book and I didn't know if you
Speaker 1: were aware of this case obviously when I read the book.
Speaker 1: But you say missing person's reports and the immediate wake
Speaker 1: of the attacks climbed over six thousand, but the official
Speaker 1: lives lost total two thousand, eight hundred and one at
Speaker 1: the first year of commemoration. Of those more than three
Speaker 1: thousand misidentified deaths, forty four were claims for people who
Speaker 1: were either still alive or people who did not exist.
Speaker 1: So those forty four are numbers that come from um
Speaker 1: what the n y p D called Operation Vulture Sweep,
Speaker 1: and that was for people who were just like very
Speaker 1: flagrant fraudsters, like inventing a spouse who they say worked
Speaker 1: at Cantor Fitzgerald, and they were really just trying to
Speaker 1: very boldly exploit charities and collect money. And these were
Speaker 1: like very easily disproven. And then the next passage, this
Speaker 1: is what really got me, and I I highlighted it.
Speaker 1: I put a bracket, and then I put a giant
Speaker 1: highlighted star on the page. Imagine coming up from the subway,
Speaker 1: recognizing the tragedy, immediately computing it as an opportunity, and
Speaker 1: opening and slinking away. Nothing filed, no attempt at life insurance,
Speaker 1: just a split second decision to vanish. Why nine eleven,
Speaker 1: Why did you put that in the book before you
Speaker 1: were even aware of this case? Why does it fascinate you?
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's in our whole collective memory.
Speaker 1: It's just such a seared moment for all of us, right,
Speaker 1: it was just like this utter chaos and you couldn't
Speaker 1: wrap your mind around it. Right, So I think the
Speaker 1: idea that someone could make something I don't want to
Speaker 1: necessarily say positive, but that someone could see this utter
Speaker 1: tragedy and destruction and see how a kind of a
Speaker 1: lightbulb moment. I think maybe it's just that contrast that
Speaker 1: is really what kind of gets into my imagination, at
Speaker 1: least something that Frank said. He used the phrase austere elegance,
Speaker 1: which stuck out to me. Having looked at this case,
Speaker 1: what's your general impression, Man, It's so interesting. It's it's
Speaker 1: just so fascinating. I mean, there's so many really compelling
Speaker 1: loose ends. She herself is such an interesting person, I think.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's what really gets me about this case,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, she seemed to be embroiled in
Speaker 1: quite a bit of paradoxes. You know, I can't, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't obviously know her. I don't know the situation,
Speaker 1: but you know, it sounded like she was in a
Speaker 1: marriage but maybe had other identities that she was trying
Speaker 1: to express at the same time. So I just think
Speaker 1: about her and I think, you know, now you said
Speaker 1: this thing about being a doctor but really wanting to
Speaker 1: be an artist. You know, just these forces at her
Speaker 1: that were at odds um and you know, sounds by
Speaker 1: all accounts like a really brilliant and interesting person when
Speaker 1: you think about you're kind of fake death hero, which
Speaker 1: I never found in the course of my research in
Speaker 1: terms of someone who fakes their death for what seems
Speaker 1: like an altruistic or legitimate purpose, someone who's not just
Speaker 1: kind of like a you know, bottom feeder trying to
Speaker 1: scam money out of these things. You know, she seems
Speaker 1: like she could be that person. She had maybe some
Speaker 1: interesting motivations. Also, it sounds like had some some trouble
Speaker 1: with UM, perhaps substance abuse and as you suggested, mental illness,
Speaker 1: which again, when you think about the mindset of kind
Speaker 1: of desperation of trying to make this calculus add up
Speaker 1: that this is the best course of action, perhaps some
Speaker 1: of those impulses could have led her there. So I
Speaker 1: think she's so interesting. And then, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: you just have that last image of her, you know,
Speaker 1: the last images of her at Century twenty one buying Lingerie.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's like very lifetime movie and super scintillating,
Speaker 1: I guess. But also I think it's that her husband
Speaker 1: said that there was perhaps someone who looked like her
Speaker 1: that was seen standing in front of the elevators of
Speaker 1: her building and then turning around. I mean, it's all
Speaker 1: just so elliptical and mysterious and just completely fascinating. Well,
Speaker 1: the question too, is like she stayed. She either was
Speaker 1: alive on the night of September ten or she wasn't.
Speaker 1: And most likely obviously she was alive, so she stayed somewhere.
Speaker 1: So where did she stay the night of September ten?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's if it was anybody, If it was
Speaker 1: a family member or a friend, I mean, obviously they
Speaker 1: would have come forward. So then what what are the alternatives?
Speaker 1: Is that she stayed with someone with whom she was
Speaker 1: having an affair maybe and they didn't want to come forward.
Speaker 1: But you start to run through your mind. Can am
Speaker 1: I missing anything? Can you think of any logical alternatives?
Speaker 1: And where she might have been the night of the tent? Oh? Me, No,
Speaker 1: definitely not. I mean, I think unfortunately, when we look
Speaker 1: at these cases of women in particular disappearing, you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's usually because they've been abducted and oftentimes murdered. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know it from what I've seen these cases, it's
Speaker 1: it's not what we want them to be. It's not
Speaker 1: this projection of sovereignty and freedom and reclamation. It's often
Speaker 1: almost always violence at the hands of someone else. Have
Speaker 1: you ever seen this postcard? No? Oh, that's eerie, right.
Speaker 1: This is a postcard sent to post Secret. It says,
Speaker 1: everyone who knew me before nine eleven believes I'm dead
Speaker 1: over a picture of the burning Twin towers. So you've
Speaker 1: never seen that before. So the idea that anybody out there,
Speaker 1: that there's somebody out there who use line eleven as
Speaker 1: a cover to to disappear, because you wouldn't even say
Speaker 1: necessarily fake their own death because they didn't cause line eleven,
Speaker 1: I mean, they just do you think that that's feasible
Speaker 1: at all? Gosh? I mean, I've thought about this a
Speaker 1: lot over the years, and I have loved to kind
Speaker 1: of think about this dark fantasy of someone who's on
Speaker 1: their way to work on the morning of nine eleven,
Speaker 1: gets out of the subway, sees what's going on, and somehow,
Speaker 1: in that instant and that split second, is able to
Speaker 1: do this calculus and take advantage of that situation for
Speaker 1: the means of disappearing. I think that's more in the realm,
Speaker 1: still a fantasy and art. I mean, it just seems
Speaker 1: so impossible to not only lay the groundwork. Of course,
Speaker 1: during September eleven there was such a great deal of
Speaker 1: chaos that in that initial aftermath, the first few months after,
Speaker 1: when things are in disarray, it seems like you probably
Speaker 1: couldn't you know, been able to get away with it
Speaker 1: for for a short period of time. I don't think
Speaker 1: in the long run, though, I think there's there's so
Speaker 1: many steps that one needs to take two go about
Speaker 1: making a believable identity that's going to really hold water
Speaker 1: over the course of years. Well, when you talk about
Speaker 1: a believable identity, though, I mean, there are eleven million
Speaker 1: undocumented workers in this country who don't all have quote,
Speaker 1: you know, by the legal sense, believable identities. I mean,
Speaker 1: would you really need to have all that lined up?
Speaker 1: I mean, what's what would stop you from going to
Speaker 1: make you know, Los Angeles or another city and kind
Speaker 1: of blending in I mean with even without an idea. Sure,
Speaker 1: so if you take the example of undocumented workers, you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. But you know, when we're talking about undocumented workers,
Speaker 1: the type of work these people are doing is usually
Speaker 1: off the books, is usually kind of labor that is
Speaker 1: extremely difficult, often very dangerous. The people who are educated,
Speaker 1: um just wouldn't do or won't do for a long
Speaker 1: period of time. So I think when you think about
Speaker 1: having a quote unquote believable identity, you either go very
Speaker 1: kind of analog like in this way where everything's off
Speaker 1: the books, you're staying completely offline, everything's in cash. Or conversely,
Speaker 1: you've invested quite a bit of money and time and
Speaker 1: resources into getting pristine documents, into building a credit history
Speaker 1: of another person, so you look like a believable person
Speaker 1: who didn't just you was born yesterday and had this
Speaker 1: you know, your thirty seven with a line of credit. Right.
Speaker 1: And the third option I guess would be having somebody
Speaker 1: in on it who had money or who was willing
Speaker 1: to support you. Right, yeah, but what do you do?
Speaker 1: What do you do though over the long haul? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: that's the question. I mean, I think you can do
Speaker 1: that for a few years maybe, but when you think
Speaker 1: about decades, right, and if you are a person from
Speaker 1: a professional background and you do have very specific profile,
Speaker 1: portfolio of interests, it's really hard to just erase all
Speaker 1: of that and become someone so so countered who you
Speaker 1: were The thing is, though, the idea that stay Hot
Speaker 1: used nine eleven to disappear twenty years ago and the
Speaker 1: idea that she's still alive are two different things. Studies
Speaker 1: show that missing women are at a much higher risk
Speaker 1: of dying by murder or suicide. It's depressing, I know,
Speaker 1: But even if Sna did survive, if she did abscond,
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that she's still alive. She could be
Speaker 1: a Jane Doe somewhere. But if she did successfully disappear,
Speaker 1: do he just kind of want to let her disappear
Speaker 1: in peace? That's a good question. I think if personally
Speaker 1: I would if I found her somehow, I I would
Speaker 1: leave it up to her whether or not she wanted
Speaker 1: to come forward. Like that's it's a really good question.
Speaker 1: There's there's a good ethical Well, first of all, I
Speaker 1: mean by that point, you know we've made it pretty
Speaker 1: far in the investigation. No, that's that's a great ethical question. Um,
Speaker 1: I haven't thought too much. No, I don't know the
Speaker 1: answer myself. I just think if she's able to get
Speaker 1: away with it for this long, what I would what
Speaker 1: I would do is personally, if I were to magically
Speaker 1: find her, I would approach her. I talked to her,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't you know all of a sudden blast out
Speaker 1: that I had found her where she was. It's not
Speaker 1: my place to judge, and I think I probably would
Speaker 1: treat her like a source. I'd probably say, I have
Speaker 1: all these questions. You absolutely fascinate me, You fascinate the world.
Speaker 1: This is incredible. But I'm I'm happy to respect your
Speaker 1: anonymity and your privacy in terms of where you are,
Speaker 1: what your identity is. But it's it's tough as a journalist.
Speaker 1: And I also just look at there are other people
Speaker 1: doing it and doing it with like really like some
Speaker 1: of the like some of the headlines from when she disappeared,
Speaker 1: like under you know that the post it was like
Speaker 1: it's like the most like salacious thing, and some of
Speaker 1: some ofhow it was initially reported or even in the
Speaker 1: court case it was like she's conducting bisexual acts and
Speaker 1: it's like, what you know is this like you imagine
Speaker 1: that like puritan like, oh, we are in a court
Speaker 1: of law, like but um no, I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: a good question. But I guess you know that's it's
Speaker 1: a fair ethical point. I would ask you separate from
Speaker 1: the show separate. Wouldn't this wouldn't she be? I feel
Speaker 1: like I don't want to say the most magical example. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean people ask me all the time like, oh, so,
Speaker 1: did you ever talk to someone who faked their death
Speaker 1: and they were still presumed dead? And no, I never have, like,
Speaker 1: never got that phone call. I would love to and
Speaker 1: I'm available if anyone wants to talk, but um no,
Speaker 1: she would be everything to speak to that experience. If
Speaker 1: presuming she did disappear and has managed to stay gone
Speaker 1: for almost twenty years now, I would live to talk
Speaker 1: to her, just to have a coffee with her and
Speaker 1: ask her what that's been like and everything, and try
Speaker 1: to leave it at that, let her go back to
Speaker 1: her wherever she is. Well, I guess I would ask
Speaker 1: you the same question, because you know I'm working on
Speaker 1: this project specifically, but you worked on the broader perspective here.
Speaker 1: How would you handle that ethically? Let's say you were
Speaker 1: resar saying this story and you found her sending at
Speaker 1: a cafe or an apartment Los Angeles or something. How
Speaker 1: would how would you handle it? If she said, I
Speaker 1: don't want you to report that I'm still alive. Would
Speaker 1: you respect that or would you find a balance between
Speaker 1: that's a doozy, that's a real doozy. I think what
Speaker 1: I would do is I would try to stay on
Speaker 1: her as gingerly as possible. That's always kind of my
Speaker 1: m O in probably years two. When you go into
Speaker 1: this kind of work, you don't easily take no for
Speaker 1: an answer. So I think I would try to stay
Speaker 1: on her, build some trust, hopefully. I think I would
Speaker 1: try to meet or talk on the phone under the
Speaker 1: cover of total anonymity, total privacy, And I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's cowardly, but maybe there's some way you can
Speaker 1: split the difference where you can say you did speak
Speaker 1: with her, but not reveal any of the details she
Speaker 1: I agree with you, Like, it's really hard, especially this
Speaker 1: Your family's out there, you know, and if they would
Speaker 1: have who knows me. Maybe the families usually know more
Speaker 1: than they led on. So yeah, you have all these
Speaker 1: ethical and then maybe even legal implications, So like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's interesting. You'd also have to be really
Speaker 1: careful about how you approach her. It couldn't just be
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna place a phone call and then the
Speaker 1: minute that somebody gets a hold hold of my phone records. Well,
Speaker 1: the book is playing dead. We're not live, but I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you the br treat. My guest today
Speaker 1: on this cold COVID death winter about to snow day
Speaker 1: as we're shivering, is Elizabeth Greenwood. Did I miss anything?
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you want to say? Any important points?
Speaker 1: I don't think those really good questions. So in the end,
Speaker 1: can we rule out the idea that stay hot use
Speaker 1: nine eleven as cover to voluntarily disappear? No, I don't
Speaker 1: think so. She was a brilliant woman, unhappy with life,
Speaker 1: her marriage, and her profession. The idea that she ran away, well,
Speaker 1: the only remarkable thing about it is nine eleven. Otherwise
Speaker 1: it's not unique. Thousands of people disappear every year. The
Speaker 1: postcard says, everyone who knew me before nine eleven believes
Speaker 1: I'm dead. Change nine eleven to any other day? Is
Speaker 1: it really that crazy? Next week we're going to release
Speaker 1: a special bonus episode. We'll be back with a brand
Speaker 1: new full episode the week after that. Homework One, did
Speaker 1: you successfully fake your own death and get away with it?
Speaker 1: Do you know anyone else who did? Two? Did you
Speaker 1: send a nine eleven postcard to post Secret? If so,
Speaker 1: whether it's real or oaks, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: I'll protect your identity. You can reach us by phone
Speaker 1: at one eight three three new Tips that's one eight
Speaker 1: three three six three nine eight four seven seven again
Speaker 1: one eight three three six three nine eight four seven seven,
Speaker 1: or you can reach us via email at tips at
Speaker 1: iHeart media dot com. That's Tips, t I p s
Speaker 1: at iHeart media dot com. Ben Bollen is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Paul Decan is our supervising producer, Chris Brown is our
Speaker 1: assistant producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer. Sam T.
Speaker 1: Garden is our research assistant, and I'm your host and
Speaker 1: executive producer, John Wallzack. Cover art by Pam Peacock. Please
Speaker 1: donate to the Internet Archive. It's a vital resource. Go
Speaker 1: to archive dot org slash donate Missing Person Studied participants
Speaker 1: voiced by Samantha McVeigh, Any Reese, Brandy Supra, Paul Decan,
Speaker 1: and Alice Chelf Sara Wong. Special thanks to Tamika Campbell
Speaker 1: at iHeart and at Christoph Zapprey in New Orleans. Also
Speaker 1: thank you to Dr e Mark bogutin Detective Richard Stark
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Greenwood and ASoP Rock. Go by Elizabeth's book Playing Dead,
Speaker 1: a journey through the world of death fraud. She's a
Speaker 1: great writer and it's a fun book. Elizabeth also has
Speaker 1: a brand new book coming out this month called Love Lockdown, Dating,
Speaker 1: Sex and Marriage in America's Prisons. Original theme music by
Speaker 1: ASoP Rock. Check out Asop's website at ASoP rock dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter at at john wallzac
Speaker 1: j O n w A l c z a K.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, check out our first season,
Speaker 1: Missing in Alaska, about the nineteen seventy two disappearance of
Speaker 1: two congressmen. Missing on nine eleven, is a co production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Greenfork Media.